Polls predict split decision on Super Tuesday

WASHINGTON — Mitt Romney heads into the Super Tuesday presidential primaries more tortoise than hare — a slow but steady Republican front-runner aiming to rack up wins more methodically than his three weaker rivals.

With the former Massachusetts governor having finally gained some momentum in the past week, supporters cling to the hope of a near-sweep of the 10 states voting Tuesday that would all but end the protracted GOP race.

Senator John McCain said Monday a Romney victory in Ohio — the day’s second-biggest prize in terms of delegates — should be enough to convince Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul to abandon their campaigns.

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“I hope that, at that point, most of us would declare or believe that it’s over, and start focusing on the real adversary,” the 2008 Republican nominee said on the CBS Early Show.

His wish may be more fanciful than realistic.

What’s more likely, according to polls, is a split decision in which Mr. Romney widens his overall lead in delegates without delivering a knockout punch to Mr. Santorum or the others.

In all, 419 delegates are up for grabs in Tuesday’s primaries and caucuses.

Mr. Romney holds decisive leads in Vermont and Massachusetts, and could win every delegate in Virginia, where neither Mr. Santorum nor Mr. Gingrich qualified for the primary ballot.

‘Any realistic hope of closing the gap fades away with his organizational incompetence’

But a much tougher test awaits in Ohio (66 delegates), where the latest polls show him in a statistical dead heat with Mr. Santorum.

A Rasmussen poll released Tuesday gave Mr. Santorum 33% to Mr. Romney’s 32%.

A Santorum win in blue-collar Ohio would reinforce doubts among Mr. Romney’s critics about his ability to close the deal with working-class Republicans, easily the GOP demographic least enthusiastic about his candidacy.

Mr. Romney’s campaign has been buoyed by the Ohio polls’ trend that has show their candidate gaining support, rather than losing it.

Advisors have also highlighted organizational snafus in the Santorum campaign, which threaten to limit the number of delegates he can win in Ohio.

“That basic organizational test that you’re going to have to have to battle President [Barack] Obama is a test that Rick Santorum and his campaign have flunked,” Ben Ginsberg, a senior Romney legal advisor, said in a weekend conference call.

“The day after Super Tuesday, the Santorum campaign is going to be looking at a sufficient [delegate] deficit … Any realistic hope of closing the gap fades away with his organizational incompetence.”

Mr. Gingrich holds a double-digit poll lead in Georgia, the state he represented in Congress. The former House speaker said Monday he believed a victory there would give him enough momentum to win primaries in Alabama and Mississippi March 13. He also is looking at a possible victory in the Kansas caucuses March 10.

Though slumping in several recent Super Tuesday polls, Mr. Santorum also sees opportunities to prolong the contest.

Beyond Ohio, his campaign is banking on possible victories in Oklahoma and Tennessee, where he is in a close race with Mr. Romney and Mr. Gingrich.

“We’re hanging in there,” said Mr. Santorum, who accused Mr. Romney of thinking he could buy the nomination with a better-funded campaign.

“We’re being outspent about six to one again in just about every state. It’s remarkable that we’re doing as well as we are.”

The picture is fuzzier in North Dakota, Alaska and Idaho, which are holding nominating contests on Super Tuesday. Mr. Paul, the libertarian Texas congressman, is hoping to collect his first win of the 2012 nomination race in Alaska or Idaho. Both Mr. Romney and Mr. Santorum have campaigned in North Dakota over the last week.

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